Paul is up to his usual playful tricks in this Prize puzzle…with a familiar preponderance of 2- and 3-word linked entries, hyphenations and amusing surface reads.
I couldn’t see any particular theme-ette or Nina, although I am not an aficionado of SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS (SBSP), so there may be an episode called BANG FOR ONE’S BUCK where he attends an underwater SILENT DISCO singing TIDDLY-OM-POM-POM to himself before emerging from the INKINESS of the ocean to observe a BLUE SKY(?!).
Lots of exclamation marks in my parsings below – the use of ‘anagrammatised’ as an anagrind, for LUCER(NE) at 20D, must be fairly rare; OVER DUE for more than a couple of Italians; the thickened plot for GRAVY at 3D; the CAR NATION as a land of petrol-heads; owls as ‘members of parliament’ in 5D BESTOWALS…I’m sure others will have their own favourites…
(I’ve also been ear-worming ‘Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside’ all week, thanks to TIDDLY-OM-POM-POM…apologies if I’ve now set you off on that track…)
Overall it was a fairly tricky solve, worthy of a Prize spot, I would suggest…SUOMI might have been a stretch of GK for some, but then again SBSP might have been on the outer edges of some people’s cultural experience as well… FOOLSCAP is a word I haven’t heard in a long time – I’m sure when I started out in the world of office work in the late 80s it was a generic term for what is now A4-sized paper.
My thanks, as usual, to Paul for an amusing diversion, and I trust all is clear below.
| Across | ||
|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Solution | Clue (definition underlined)
Logic/parsing |
| 1A | SPONGEBOB (SQUAREPANTS) | & 9 & 23 Borrow 5p and settle up with poor children’s entertainer (9,11)
SPONGE (borrow) + BOB (a shilling, 12 old pence, 5 new pence) + SQUARE (settle up) + PANTS (poor, slang) |
| 6A | BUCK | See 4 Down (4)
see 4D |
| 8A | FOREWARN | Prophesy when fear has worn off (8)
anag, i.e. off, of FEAR + WORN |
| 9A | SQUARE | See 1 Across (6)
see 1A |
| 10A | TIDDLY(-OM-POM-POM) | & 16 Sacred sound throttled by drunken Englishmen as brass band played? (6-2-3-3)
TIDDLY (drunken) + POM-POM (poms, Englishmen, from an Australian perspective!), around (throttling) OM (sacred sound used in meditation) |
| 11A | FOOLSCAP | Wally’s better paper (8)
FOOLS (wally + contracted ‘s) + CAP (better, outdo) [‘foolscap’ being a now pretty obsolete paper size, close to but long superseded by A4] |
| 12A | ADHERE | Bond, that fellow in a dress abandoning ship (6)
AD_RE( |
| 15A | READY-MIX | Dreamy ingredients initially needing a stir? That’s wrong – it’s already been done! (5-3)
READY-MI_ (anag, i.e. needing a stir, of DREAMY + I – initial letter of Ingredients) + X (marking, indicating something is wrong) |
| 16A | OM-POM-POM | See 10 Across (2-3-3)
see 10A |
| 19A | SILENT (DISCO) | & 22D Musical event: it’s closed in when dancing (6,5)
anag, i.e. dancing, of ITS CLOSED IN |
| 21A | INKINESS | Dark quality in family eases, oddly (8)
IN + KIN (family) + ESS (odd letters of EaSeS) |
| 22A | DA CAPO | Musical work a player’s taken back to the beginning? (2,4)
OP (music, opus, or work) + A + CAD (player, dishonourable gentleman) – all taken back to give DA CAPO! [‘da capo’ being a musical instruction to go back to the head, or the start] |
| 24A | ACROSS | Beyond a kiss? (6)
A + CROSS (x, indicating a kiss this time, rather than wrongness) |
| 25A | ANSERINE | Like geese I ensnare, in a flap (8)
anag, i.e. in a flap, of I ENSNARE |
| 26A | ONES | See 4 Down (4)
see 4D |
| 27A | DO-GOODERS | Noble lot in old river cutting through isle (2-7)
DO-G_S (isle, the Isle of Dogs, East London) around (cut through by) O (old) + ODER (German river) |
| Down | ||
| Clue No | Solution | Clue (definition underlined)
Logic/parsing |
| 1D | SUOMI | European country, speaking for its people, unanimously taking part in uprising? (5)
reversed hidden word, i.e. taking part and in uprising, in ‘unanIMOUSly’ [‘Suomi’ being Finnish for Finland – i.e. spoken by its people] |
| 2D | OVERDUE | Late, more than a couple of Italians (7)
‘due’ in Italian means two, so if there were more than two Italians, there might be OVER DUE! |
| 3D | GRAVY | Like a plot, might one say, that’s thickened? (5)
punning homophone, i.e. might one say – a plot can be a grave, so like a plot might be grave-y, which sounds like GRAVY, something that is thickened! |
| 4D | BANG FOR (ONE’S BUCK) | & 26 & 6A Value in financial institution maintaining good bonus? Force to change (4,3,4,4)
BAN_K (financial institution) around (maintaining) G FOR ONES BUC (anag, i.e. to change, of G – good – plus BONUS FORCE) |
| 5D | BESTOWALS | Acts of generosity in article penned by peerless members of parliament? (9)
BEST (peerless) + OW_LS (members of a parliament!) around (penning in) A (indefinite article) |
| 6D | BLUE-SKY | Kind of thinking, clearly over one’s head? (4-3)
if it is clear over one’s head (during the day) then there is probably a BLUE SKY! |
| 7D | CARNATION | Rose-tinted land of the petrolhead? (9)
a CAR NATION might be a land of petrol-heads! |
| 13D | DOMINICAN | Cook small quantity of baked beans, perhaps, for islander (9)
DO (cook) + MINI (small) + CAN (quantity of baked beans) |
| 14D | EXPRESSED | Squeeze no longer squeezed, it’s said (9)
EX (former squeeze, as in romantic interest) + PRESSED (squeezed, in a more physical sense) |
| 17D | OMINOUS | Forbidding love, something negative about that very thing? (7)
O (zero, love) + MIN_US (something negative) around O (again, that very thing!) |
| 18D | MUSTANG | Wild thing ‘as to be strung up? (7)
someone who drops their aitches might say someone else MUST ‘ANG, meaning ‘e ‘as to be strung up… [the ‘wild thing’ being a wild horse of the American prairies] |
| 20D | LUCERNE | One has scratched head after cluer anagrammatised fodder (7)
LUCER (anag, i.e. anagrammatised!, of CLUER) + ( [‘lucerne’ being another word for alfalfa, or cattle fodder…as well as a canton/city/lake in Switzerland!] |
| 22D | DISCO | See 19 Across (5)
see 19A |
| 23D | PANTS | See 1 Across (5)
see 1A |
Got PANTS from crosses which gave me the rest of the children’s entertainer which helped in the top half.
Liked READY-MIX, INKINESS, ADHERE, BLUE-SKY, DO-GOODERS
Didn’t get LUCERNE and never heard of SUOMI
Thanks Paul and mc_rapper67
For me this grid was simply the sheer range of different levels of GK involved, and was a bit of a head scratcher the whole way, last one in being SBSP, with a LOL and sigh of relief, and a great sense of satisfaction!
Thanks to Paul and MC
Wasn’t foolscap replaced by A3 and A4 replaced quarto?
I finished this, but it was quite hard to get a foothold at first. Once I got on Paul’s wavelength, things started falling into place. To my taste, some of the punnier clues push the bounds of “cryptic,” but OK, I had to use a little sideways thinking for a change.
The key clue (because the answer SBSP is so long), is to my mind typical of Paul’s style. SBSP clearly does entertain kids so there is no quibbling with the correctness of the clue, but I’d imagine if you asked 100 adults to list 5 children’s entertainers, SBSP would never be mentioned because you (i,we?) just don’t think of him in those terms. Well actually, I don’t normally think of him at all!
A lot of smiles from this puzzle, not easy but not too stretchy.
Thanks mc_rapper67. My heart sank a bit when Paul’s name registered with me but progress was surprisingly uniform and I got there without too much of the usual hassle and recourse to references. I couldn’t see 22a was cryptic for a while and it also took me some time to see the obvious x = kiss. I did like 5d – after unsuccessfully trying to work ‘commons’ in there somehow.
Thanks, Paul and mc_rapper67!
My top faves: DA CAPO, EXPRESSED and MUSTANG.
A fail for me which was upsetting. I knew SUOMI but never heard of SBSP so was on the back foot all the time. Da Capo and Anserine also not in my GK. I do remember Foolscap.
Thank you mc_rapper67.
BLUE-SKY thinking is a thing which has a lot of currency these days, but for a recognised definition Collins online has: Blue-sky thinking is the activity of trying to find completely new ideas.
I thoroughly enjoyed this one, and I think mc_rapper sums it up nicely as ‘playful’, although it took me a while to get into it. My first pass through only yielded five answers – four anagrams and DA CAPO, which I remember from the original Three Tenors concert, when they repeat everything ‘da capo’, from the start. I see my printed copy has ‘AARGH!’ written on it four times, which I think meant ‘how could I have spent so long not getting this outrageous clue?’ and is actually a note of appreciation. (SBSP, TIDDLY-OM-POM-POM, DOMINICAN and MUSTANG, although I think I felt the same way about OVERDUE as well.) I think I may have been lucky that this matched my occasionally erratic GK quite well. Thanks both.
TIDDLY-OM-POM-POM amused me, as I knew all the ingredients, the tiddly and the om and the Poms. Don’t know what that says about me, a drunken Buddhist Australian?
SUOMI my pick. Just brilliant. Coming from one who hasn’t enjoyed Paul a lot since I came to Guardian cryptics, I loved every element of that clue.
Thanks Paul and mc_rapper67. For 15a I entered READY-AIM, arrived at by some convoluted reasoning from “Ready, aim, fire”. Talk about jumping the gun!
Havee seen due, as in uno due tre, used before, and it’s neat. From crossers plus bits of def, got the pants bit then the square bit of SBSP, then looked the rest up. The brass band and disco were cute. Ta Paul and rapper, quite fun.
Thanks so much to Paul. I only remembered to do this puzzle this Saturday morning Aussie time after a busy week, but I am glad I did as I really enjoyed a lot of the clues. I agree that it was Paul in a very playful mood with 1,9a,23d SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS and 10,16a TIDDLY-OM-POM-POM. I didn’t know 22a DA CAPO or 1d SUOMI so did a “fill-in from the crossers and check” for those two (learning all the time). My favourite was 5d BESTOWALS (for the OWLS) which also got a mention in the preamble. The enthusiastic blog was much appreciated, so thanks to mc_rapper67. I’m enjoying the positive comments on the thread.
[Yes JamestheGhillie@3, that’s how I recall the difference between A4 and 11a FOOLSCAP. I must admit to a big smile at your comment@12, paddymelon; you’re a woman after my own heart.]
Thanks for the blog , you should be a script writer for SBSP , I did think it was fairly clued with each of the four bits in turn. I did not know SUOMI so I was glad it was hidden , perhaps Anna will enlighten us more on this.
Jacob Rees-Mogg wants to re-introduce FOOLSCAP, this A4/A3 etc system is far too modern and should be banned, yet another Brexit bonus.
In the UK it was slightly larger than A4, I still use FOOLSCAP filing cabinets and order folders, dividers etc in that size, all the A4 fits much more neatly.
Small thing for a small mind. Does anyone remember learning how to fold a fool’s cap out of (foolscap size) paper?
( I remember but can’t remember when. )
Odd how we know different things as general knowledge. I know SUOMI from stamp collecting as a child, it’s how I identified Finnish stamps, DA CAPO I wrote in from reading music. I am the wrong generation for SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS, but I know far more than I ever wanted to after solving and finding a series of geoart geocaches based on that idea (geoart is when cache placement creates a picture, in this case, SBSP). I also use FOOLSCAP files to hold A4 paper in a filing cabinet – it is slightly longer and slightly narrower than A4. A3 is double A4. However ANSERINE was new to me.
It took a few goes to finish this, with DO-GOODERS the last in, with another groan as I saw and parsed it. This was a very pun-filled crossword.
Thank you to Paul and mc_rapper67.
I enjoyed that much more than yesterday’s Paul: playful and needing some lateral thinking. SUOMI will probably be familiar to those who collected stamps in their youth.
Very enjoyable. Many thanks Paul … and mc_rapper67 for explaining the parsings I missed. The connected clues all took me a lot of time but I was never disappointed. As always, Paul pulls the ODER one with me.
Thanks mc_rapper67, my experience similar to KeithS and others, enough new or unfamiliar entries to make it a proper challenge. I haven’t seen those parliamentarians for a while, and spotted that wordplay of 20d could make LUCERNE but needed a few crossers before looking up that it actually meant something other than the town.
I think our school ordered reams of FOOLSCAP once which turned out not to fit some vital machine and was thus handed out for us to hone our ‘artistic talent’. As i recall it is somehow less aesthetically pleasing than A4, further from the Golden Ratio perhaps.
Thanks Paul for a wonderful workout that really stretched me (yes good spot Shanne re pun density).
Years ago Paul was my favourite setter, but he has become a bit variable of late (though never worse than ‘good’ IMO). This was back to his best I thought. The more obscure GK was lurking somewhere in my brain; the only new thing for me was SILENT DISCO – but then I was never very keen on discos of any variety. Many favourites including EXPRESSED, TIDDLY-OM-POM-POM, MUSTANG, CARNATION. Paul is often accused of producing clunky surfaces – which don’t actually bother me – but these ones were all great I thought.
Thanks Paul and mc_rapper67.
Did anybody else have Bishopans for 5D. Peerless members of Parliament = Bishops, article =an. The only problem was that there appeared to be no such word in my dictionary. However that doesn’t always mean it’s wrong. My dictionary doesn’t contain many Hindustani or Australian slang words so I bunged it in and hoped for the best. Alas it was not to be and so another failure for my statistics. Many thanks to Paul for a Norman Hunter (hard but fair) challenge and to Mc_rapper67 for the explanations.
Roz @ 16
Living in Helsinki, I got SUOMI almost immediately.
The official name of the country is SUOMI-FINLAND. The Suomi bit being the Finnish name of the country, and the Finland bit being the Swedish. Finnish and Swedish are the two official languages.
I don’t know if this was in Paul’s mind, but you, and others, may be interested to know that, in Finnish, the name of the language is very often the same as the name of the country, but written without a capital. So, Suomi is the country, and suomi is the language. Suomalaiset (Finnish people) puhuvat (speak) suomea (Finnish). (And doesn’t that verb ending just scream Indo-european to you, but that’s for another time).
I’ll just add that Suomi is linked with the word ‘suo’ meaning marsh or bog. Very appropriate, when you consider all the water in Finland. Suo + maa (country).
I’m another one who uses foolscap folders etc for the same reasons as others above.
The puzzle was Paul at his best mix of brilliance and oddity.
‘Suomi’ is a lovely word to have for your country / language.
Thanks to Paul and mc_rapper67 for your always comprehensive blog.
For the first time in a long time, my first pass yielded zero answers. Maybe me just having a bad day. Eventually, I pieced it all together, although I must say that I preferred Paul’s style in yesterday’s Cryptic. I did like the drunken Englishmen, although that might lead to an unwelcome ear worm for the rest of the day. I also enjoyed BANG FOR ONE’S BUCK, the peerless members in BESTOWALS, and the anagrammatised fodder in LUCERNE.
Thanks Anna @25 for the interesting information about SUOMI.
Thanks Paul and mcr.
Thanks
I particularly liked SUOMI, BESTOWALS and TIDDLY-OM-POM-POM. I was stuck on SPONGEBOB… until I finally got PANTS for ‘poor’ and SPONGEBOB for ‘Borrow 5p’. I’ve rarely heard or seen that name. I admired Paul’s grid construction incorporating the three multi-word answers.
Thanks Paul and mc_rapper.
Kept me enthralled throughout the week. Almost completed, DA CAPO and LUCERNE finally eluding me, as they would have had I spent another week.
Thanks to Paul for all of the fun and mc for some tricky parsing.
Congratulations Paul – you defeated us fair and square with this one. Didn’t manage BESTOWALS (we were looking for owls but never thought of putting an article in above them), READY MIX, MUSTANG or DO-GOODERS. Got EXPRESSED from the definition but for some reason couldn’t parse it.
But, as others have said, a wonderful and rewarding challenge. What an amazing range of words and phrases, intriguing surfaces and setter’s tricks.
“among” not “above”
Most remember to proofread anything generated by gesture typing.
I enjoyed this, particularly the witty surfaces. As usual some solve first, parse later e,g. 16a (Brahman ritual is not part of my GK) and 27a (I don’t suppose anyone got ODER before DO-GOODERS as there are too many possible rivers.
I got 1d early on as the Suomi people have featured in a few television programmes
We had a parliament of rooks recently which misdirected me at the time, owls being more common.
Thanks to Paul and mc_rapper67
Thanks Paul and mc. I eventually cheated on 5d, it being my last one in, and I also (Alan @24) couldn’t get the non-word BISHOPANS out of my head. UM-PAH-PAH anyone?
Thank you Anna@25 , wonderful. Next time you are stuck on Particle Physics I will return the favour.
Shanne @19, Gladys @20. Philately will get you anywhere.
Recent prizes seem to be getting harder. Not a complaint, merely an observation. This was the first one I completed for 3 weeks.
Like Graham@33 I was stuck on thinking of the wrong rhythm at 16a, leaving me with acres of white space until yesterday evening. I got the BOB part of 1a, but the rest of it was beyond the outer edges of my cultural experience, as mc_ puts it so eloquently. Got there eventually when the crossers for SPONGE, PANTS and SQUARE made them unignorable.
Needed all the crossers for ANSERINE, and would never have thought of ODER for the river in 27a.
I think Alan@24 must be a Leeds United fan, because no one else thinks of Norman Hunter as “tough but fair”. But, like Norman, there was much to appreciate and enjoy about the playfulness and originality of this crossword, so many thanks to Paul and to mc_ for the equally playful blog.
I agree with the general consensus above. Tough but logical, fair and amusing. A satisfying puzzle, although I needed Google to work out letters after SPONGE. Remembered SUOMI from my schoolboy stamp album.
I abandoned this on Monday, but came back to it on Wednesday and managed to tease it all out.
SBSP was a name I’d heard but had no real idea what of. SPONGE did seem to be the only thing to fit the crossers I had but “borrow” doesn’t seem a very good definition for SPONGE. I don’t think spongers expect to give anything back. The penny finally dropped once I had all the crossers for PANTS.
Biffed EXPRESSED, having forgotten the slang term “squeeze”.
Very satisfying to finish this off.
I only started this yesterday but it still took a few visits to grind out a finished grid, with a little e-help at the end. But some fabulous clues, very inventive.
Thanks both.
SUOMI is known to me from the Winter Olympics. They’re a force in ice hockey, which of course is also popular here in North America. Of course their uniforms say SUOMI, not FINLAND. [I watch that, the figure skating, and occasional snippets of curling (oddly soothing) and biathlon (oddly mesmerizing). Not big on the rest of it.]
SPONGEBOB was, I think, not popular until I became just a bit too old for kids’ TV, but since he’s part of the culture, he’s hard to avoid. Hadn’t heard of TIDDLY-OM-POM-POM (as with others, I’m used to oom-pah-pah), but the wordplay was unambiguous, and Google confirmed.
Wanted to mention that DOMINICAN can refer to the residents of either of two different islands: either Dominica or the Dominican Republic (Hispaniola). The two words are pronounced differently, though–for the less-populous of the two Dominicans, the stress goes on the third syllable.
[Oh, and of course la Republica Dominicana is a major force in that other team sport that doesn’t translate well into British: baseball. Their uniforms say DOMINICANA.]
[sheffield hatter@36. I’m with Alan Cripps@24. Tough but fair the perfect description … of Norman Hunter not just Paul’s puzzle. He had humour too.]
Thanks for all the comments and feedback so far – much appreciated…(even Tony Collman has turned up…and ‘the blog ain’t over until the Coll-man pings’…)
Sounds like this was reasonably well received, with all the punny playfulness and range of GK involved.
I may have miscalculated with my foolscap comparisons…Go-ogle is a wonderful place…sometimes… (Paddymelon at #17 – presumably it depends on how big the fool’s head is?…)
BigglesA at #6 – I thought the A+CROSS clue was one of the weakest here, almost a write-in…interesting how that ‘Paul’ at the top of a puzzle can play with your head!
Lots of interesting memories on stamp-collecting/Suomi – not my bag, but I did know it – and I did enjoy the ‘philately will get you anywhere!’ joke from Crispy at #35
Re. brass bands…the lyrics for ‘I do like to be beside the seaside’ seem to have it as ‘Where the brass bands play: “Tiddely-om-pom-pom!”‘…but what is a little ‘e’ amongst friends?…
22a How is a CAD a player? And I hadn’t registered before that “cad” has a class reference as well as a male one.
I enjoyed everybody’s favorites. Thanks Paul and mc_rapper67.
Valentine @44 CAD/womaniser/player
Agreeing with Nicbach@45 , cad is pretty old-fashioned , Terry Thomas in the 1950s, player seems very modern or is certainly the current favoured term.
Re foolscap vs A4. Wiki has foolscap folio 13″ x 8″, which is slightly larger than A4, but this is (or was) nearly always referred to as just foolscap. There is a larger size, approx 17″ x 13″ (it varies a little between US and UK), which is what is actually foolscap, and this is fairly close to A3, but I assume the name of the smaller, everyday size just got shortened for convenience.
So everyone is correct!
Really enjoyed some of these, but ANSERINE and MUSTANG defeated me. Also struggled over TIDDLY-OM-POM-POM even though it’s pretty obvious when one gets there. Favourites were CARNATION and DOMINICAN – both very neat.